


you fit me better than my favourite sweater

by andfinallywearehome



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, guess who's back with the google-translated spanish, road trip!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 00:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andfinallywearehome/pseuds/andfinallywearehome
Summary: Raphael makes a noise of disapproval at the packet in Simon’s hand. “Pop tarts aren’t nutritional, Simon.”“Who made you my mom?” Simon says, dropping them into the basket anyway, and tries hard not to think of his real mom, sitting back at home in Brooklyn and thinking about the son she still thinks is training to be an accountant.(or: simon and raphael run away from their problems and fall in love a little.)





	you fit me better than my favourite sweater

**Author's Note:**

> freeform, please don't take these precious gay vampires away from me. how else will i produce messes like this.
> 
>  
> 
> this is loosely based on a prompt from dailyau on tumblr (i don't know how to embed links in the notes, whoops):
> 
> “I just wanted to get away from all responsibility so i jumped into your car and said "drive” and you drove and we had the best night in forever".
> 
>  
> 
> title comes from the song Blue Jeans by lana del rey, and i own nothing recognisable.

Simon is just minding his own business.

He’s sitting in the front seat of his car, eating tacos for the fourth night in a row (when you’re living off your bar mitzvah money, you can’t afford to be too picky), and contemplating how exactly his life had gotten to this point - squatting in the back of his van, no job, barely any money - when the passenger door beside him is suddenly thrown open. Simon wonders, for a moment, if it’s another police officer come to tell him off for parking on the street again, but it isn’t a cop, nor is it God come to save him from poverty - it’s just a regular guy, with dark hair and clean cut suit and one hell of a scowl, who appears to now be climbing into the van with him. Maybe he’s here to rob Simon of his tacos since he has little to no money to speak of.

“Hey, man -”

“Drive.”

Okay. He hadn’t expected that. It isn’t everyday people just get into his van and request some kind of taxi service. Could he charge rates on this?

"Excuse me?”

“Drive.” The man huffs when Simon doesn’t move, doesn’t even let go of his tacos. “ _Dios_ , do you not understand? _Viaje_. Drive.”

He doesn’t sound very polite, not at all, and there is still a chance he might actually mug Simon of the last of his possessions if he doesn’t agree. Perhaps now is not the right time to start picking a fight.

“Okay.” Simon sends him a sideways glance as he reaches for his keys. “Uh, where are we going?”

His passenger is drumming his fingers on his knees now, a rhythm that’s slightly too fast to not be anxiety-inducing. “Anywhere.”

“Okay. Helpful.”

The glare he receives makes him drive a little bit faster.

 

+ 

 

Simon’s mysterious passenger is named Raphael.

The man only relaxes when they’ve sailed past city limits, onto the bridge, and are leaving the lights of Brooklyn behind them. Simon has no idea where they are going, and no idea what he’s supposed to say or do; in the end, he simply plugs his phone into the radio and lets the music fill the silence instead. They get somewhere between Brooklyn and Staten Island, the sun rising low on the horizon, when Simon finally manages to coax his name out of him.

From what little information he can gather by the time they’ve pulled to a stop in front of a motel, Simon knows that Raphael has lived in New York for a while now, is a year older than Simon himself, and has a younger sister that he won’t talk about. Simon tries to ask what happened that led to him climbing into a stranger’s van without even thinking about it, but he’s met with stony silence and so decides to not push it. Instead, he shares a few details about himself in return - he’s twenty years old, a failed accounting student who really just wants to be a musician.

“I gathered,” Raphael says in response to this, and nods to the guitar lovingly nestled in the back of the van. “You could sell that if you’re struggling, you know.”

Simon bristles at the mere _thought_ of selling quite possibly the only precious thing he has left. “I’d rather have nothing at all.”

Raphael stays quiet after that.

 

+ 

 

The motel only offers them a room with one bed.

Simon makes a decision before it can become awkward, stealing some spare bedding and making a cocoon on the floor - he’s spent the past month sleeping in the back of his van, after all, he’s used to this by now.

Raphael doesn’t comment on it, simply taking the bed without a word. Simon, once again, wonders how his life has ended up like this.

 

+

 

When they reach Staten Island, they stop for breakfast. Simon can’t afford much, especially after having to pay out for a motel, but he spares some money for a bit more gas and two rather sad looking pastries for him and Raphael to have to eat. Simon gets crumbs everywhere, trying to eat and drive at the same time, and Raphael fusses for nearly twenty minutes about how there are now flakes of pastry on his suit.

“It’s not like it’s a clean suit,” Simon replies with a shrug. “Speaking of, what are you gonna do about a change of clothes? You can’t wear that the entire time.”

Raphael pauses, looking a little lost all of a sudden, like he hasn’t even considered the fact that he’ll eventually have to live outside of his precious suit. Simon rolls his eyes.

“Great.”

They find a larger convenience store to pick up necessities, since Raphael apparently doesn’t have any plans of letting Simon go any time soon. They don’t have suits in their clothing section, so he has to make do with some plain shirts and slacks, but Simon’s heart doesn’t bleed for him. He should have taken this running away thing more seriously. At least Simon had the foresight to bring a toothbrush.

“Here.” Simon reaches around to the back of the van just before they set off again, and throws a grey hoodie in Raphael’s direction. “You can wear this as well.”

Raphael looks surprised at the sudden act of kindness, as if Simon hasn’t already showered him with kind acts, but then he pulls it on and bundles himself up in the soft fabric. It’s way too big for him - it might actually come down to his knees if he stretched it a bit more - but it suits him, in a strange way.

 

+

 

They hang around various parts of Staten Island for a few more days, taking turns driving and sleeping in the back of the van whilst the other roughs out the night in the passenger seat, before Simon notices that Raphael is keen to move on to a new place. They’re not too far from the state line of New Jersey, and so Simon heads that way. He’s thought about heading towards New Jersey a few times, knowing a couple of people who live in Jersey City that he hasn’t seen for a while, and Raphael seems to have no preference about where they go, even if his favourite thing on this impromptu road trip seems to be complaining about whatever is going on.

“So you’re taking a complete stranger to spend _quality time_ with your _amigo_ from high school? Don’t you think there are some boundaries that you’re crossing, Simon?”

“We can’t all stumble about at night being brooding and mysterious.”

“ _Brooding?_ ”

“Well, yeah. Look at you. You couldn’t be anything but brooding in that suit.”

“Is that so?” Raphael rolls his eyes - one of his other favourite things in the world - but his mouth quirks up into a slight smile, the first one that Simon has actually seen. It looks good on him, Simon thinks; he should smile more often.

“Don’t most people brood in the privacy of their own homes?”

“Or their own vans? Why _are_ you living in the back of your van?”

Simon keeps his eyes on the road, his hands on the wheel, and doesn’t look at his passenger. He really doesn’t want to talk about this. Talking about it makes it more real.

“It’s a long story.”

“It’s not like we don’t have time.”

_Damn_. He hadn’t really counted on Raphael being this persistent. “I just tried something and it didn’t work out. So I’m kind of drifting around on my own at the moment.”

“That wasn’t very long, _compañero_. I was expecting a life of crime and elaborate murder plots.”

Simon snorts. “Didn’t you guess? I took that guitar when I murdered Clary’s cheating ex boyfriend.”

 

+

 

They have to stop again at a gas station that seems to be in the middle of no where. It _isn’t_ , it’s somewhere in New Jersey, but for now the houses have faded into the background, and it’s just Simon, Raphael, and the van on the open road. Raphael gets out of the passenger side to stretch his legs and walks around to get a better look at the sunset, and Simon stares at the contrast of light and shadow on his face visible underneath the donated grey hoodie for far longer than is acceptable. He starts to drum out a rhythm on the side of the van as a distraction, and pretends he knows for certain that the bar mitzvah money can cover all this cost. His passenger - friend, now? - contributes what little change he has, but it doesn’t do much to settle the urge of panic, always imminent in the back of his mind when they begin to wander around the gas station trying to find food that will keep whilst they’re on the move.

Raphael makes a noise of disapproval at the packet in Simon’s hand. “Pop tarts aren’t nutritional, Simon.”

“Who made you my mom?” Simon says, dropping them into the basket anyway, and tries hard not to think of his real mom, sitting back at home in Brooklyn and thinking about the son she still thinks is training to be an accountant.

 

+

 

Somehow, Simon gets himself a gig in a bar just outside of Jersey City.

It couldn’t have come sooner, really, because the money he currently has isn’t going to last forever, and a bit extra to keep him going until he reaches Clary’s place is going to be a godsend. Still, he hasn’t played in public for a while now, not since moving out of Jordan Kyle’s place, and he doesn’t want to mess this up simply because he’s under-prepared.

“You’ll be fine, _amigo_ ,” Raphael says, just before Simon shuffles on stage armed only with his guitar and scraps of paper covered in lyrics, but the words don’t comfort him because Raphael has never seen Simon play - how the hell does he know that he’s going to be any good? (Unless he’s a mind reader or a psychic or something, Simon thinks. That would explain the suit.)

Thankfully, he doesn’t forget the words, or sing drastically out of tune, and a few people even applaud after he’s finished his last song. It’s like a natural high, the sound of people connecting with the music _he_ created.

He’s thanked by the man behind the bar with a handshake and a wad of cash being pushed into his hands. It shouldn’t make Simon feel a little ill at the sight of it, because this is what being a musician is, but it does. This is what he does for a living now: he _hopes_ and _waits_ until he gets lucky.

He doesn’t even notice Raphael, too caught up in everything, until he’s stood right in front of him.

“Told you you’d be fine.”

“Yeah.” He’s supposed to be _happy_ , he usually is after a show that goes well, but now the high is wearing off - he’s tired, and hungry, and just wants to crawl into a proper bed and have a good cry about the _actual_ mess his life has become for at least ten long minutes.

The slightly smug look on Raphael’s face wavers slightly. “Simon?”

“I was gonna be an accountant, you know?” He says, before he can stop himself. Maybe it’s because, sure, Raphael is still more or less a stranger in the grand scheme of things, but he also has no previous impressions of him before he met the Simon that lives in the back of his van. He has no expectations of him. “I was gonna go to college, and pass all of my classes, and make my mom proud, and then -”

“Then?”

“I dropped out and tried to be a musician. That didn’t work out. And then I had to move out of my old place because my roommate was a jerk, and I was too late to re-enrol in classes again, so now I’m doing nothing with my life.” He laughs, but not because anything about this is funny. “So, yeah. Now you know why I sleep in the back of a van.”

“Simon -” Raphael starts to say, but his response is lost to Simon’s ears as he makes a break for it out the door and into the cold night air.

 

+

 

Simon has barely made it to the van, when Raphael catches up with him.

It’s not the romantic kiss on the open road that Simon has been secretly imagining these past few days, but it’s still better than he ever hoped for.

 

+

 

“You’re not the only one running away from their problems,” Raphael says later, when they’re on the move again. One of Simon’s hands is wrapped around his, a constant source of comfort.

“Oh?”

“I wanted to be a lawyer once.”

“More stable career than a musician,” Simon says, which prompts a slight chuckle. “What are you instead?”

“The receptionist at the front desk of my family’s hotel.”

“Ah.”

“Is it so bad to want something more exciting out of life?”

Simon sighs. If he knew the answer to that, maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

“I don’t know.”

 

+ 

 

They pull over to the side of the road and go stargazing in a nearby park. Suddenly, following Simon’s earlier outburst, it’s honesty hour for the two of them. As they lay on the cold grass, Raphael tells him about growing up in Mexico with his sister Rosa, and how they used to stargaze on the roof of the first house they lived in when they moved to America. Simon, in return, tells him about his life in the New York suburbs and his adventures with Clary over the years, from innocent playtimes in kindergarten, to their respective sexuality crises in junior high, to her useless boyfriend in high school that had her crying into his shirt on three separate occasions.

(Eventually, she had dumped his sorry ass like she should have done months before.)

They watch the sunrise on the hill, Raphael’s head on his shoulder and their fingers laced together.

 

+

 

They reach the centre of Jersey City by the late afternoon. Simon pulls to a stop in front of a small brown house with one window on the upstairs floor and flowers painted onto the roof of the porch, and it only takes two raps on the door with his free hand (the other entwined with Raphael’s) for someone to answer - and the woman with wavy red hair stares at him like he’s grown an extra head.

“Hey, Clary.”

“Si -” She’s in his embrace in a second, tucked in a one-armed hug, before she leans back to smack him hard on the shoulder.

“Ow! _Clary -!”_

“Where the _fuck_ have you been?” She demands. “Everyone’s been freaking out about you being gone. No one can get hold of you. Becky called to ask if I’d seen you, because your mom says you haven’t been going to class for months now, and that you’d packed up and moved out of Kyle’s apartment - Jace went out looking for you in Manhattan in case something had happened -” She looks ready to cry, right there on the doorstep, and Simon shushes her, pulling her back into a tighter hug.

“It’s okay. I’ m here now.”

“Yes, and it better stay that way, you _jerk_.” Clary sniffs a little, leaning back again, thankfully not hitting this time. Only then do her eyes drift to Raphael, stood beside her best friend. “Who’s this?”

“This is Raphael. He’s my - uh -”

“Your?” Clary arches an eyebrow, waiting for the answer. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices that Raphael does too.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Simon says finally, and hopes that the feeling is mutual. He feels Raphael’s fingers squeeze his own.

 

+

 

Clary’s home is exactly how Simon imagined it would be. It’s messy, cluttered, and absolutely covered in paint of some description. Even Clary herself is a victim; she has smudges of green and brown around her ear, probably from the giant canvas that’s been set up in the small living room.

He meets Clary’s girlfriend for the first time too, a girl named Isabelle, who gets into a deep conversation about the ins and outs of Tennyson’s poetry with Raphael ten minutes after introducing herself for the first time. Needless to say, he’s made a new friend.

Clary calls Becky to let her know that Simon’s fine, and that he’s safe, before she badgers the whole story out of him. Simon tells her everything, even tears up at one point, which makes Clary tear up too, and they cry in each other's arms like they did back in junior high.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, albeit fondly, wrapping a warm arm around his shoulders. “Why the hell didn’t you just call me? I would’ve helped you.”

“You know I never take the easy route, Fray.”

“ _Idiot_ ,” she says again, squeezing him tighter. “Well, now you’re here, I’m not letting you go off again. I can’t deal with that kind of stress in my life. You’re gonna stay here _safe_ until we figure something out.”

It’s more effort than it’s worth arguing that he’s learnt how to be safe on the open road by now. “What about Raphael?”

She rolls her eyes. “ _Obviously_ he can stay too, Si. I kind of already assumed you guys were a package deal. Besides, Izzy has claimed him as a friend now, and she won’t let him go so easily. I wouldn't try to take him, if I were you.”

Simon chuckles.

 

+

 

That night, nestled in a corner of the small house shared by Clary and Isabelle, Simon lends Raphael his phone, and he calls his sister.

It’s an experience, to say the least.

Rosa Santiago berates her brother in loud, impassioned Spanish for nearly forty minutes before he sheepishly hands the device back to Simon, having assured her at least five times that he _will_ be back soon, and that he _is_ safe, and that, _yes_ , he knows that running away at his age is never the answer.

(She also wants to know every last piece of information about the boy her brother is now involved with, but Raphael manages to keep her at bay for now with the promise of _extensive details_ next time they are face to face).

“At least they know you’re safe,” Simon says. He is yet to have this conversation with his mom and his own sister - it’s looming in the distance of tomorrow morning - but it’s not worrying him as much as it might have twenty four hours earlier. He wonders if it has something with being in the home of Clary, who has had his back since they were in diapers, or whether it’s the owner of the hand that is currently wrapped firmly in his.

“I suppose it shows you can’t run from your problems forever,” Raphael says.

Simon snorts. “Definitely not.” Then: “You don’t regret it, though, do you?”

Raphael squints at him in the dim light of the guest room, before a smile breaks out on his face, and he leans up to kiss him. Simon can feel a smile of his own on his lips.

“Never, _cariño_.”

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, i don't know either. it's two AM, and i just want to sleep, but saphael won't leave me alone, lmao


End file.
